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THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!!! Topic

Our government is prohibited by the Constitution from endorsing any religion. The government and its properties, agencies, and laws can't be religious. Lack of religious symbols is an endorsement of nothing. The way it should be.

Atheists believe in nothing religious, so allowing nothing religious is an endorsement of atheism. The only people who think that's "the way it should be" are atheists.

Posted by bistiza on 3/28/2013 12:55:00 PM (view original):Atheism is the same as any other religious belief from a legal standpoint - which means the government can't ban all religious symbols without endorsing atheist beliefs.

Were there pagan celebrations on that day before the birth of that Jesus guy?

Anyhow, your outrage, and those who can't stand the site of Baby Jesus decorations at govt buildings, is very selective. Day off? Fanfuckingtastic. Religious decoration? Whoa, wait a ******* minute. Hypocrital *******.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/28/2013 1:21:00 PM (view original):Sorry, Christmas day is the birth of Christ. The Jesus guy.

Were there pagan celebrations on that day before the birth of that Jesus guy?

Anyhow, your outrage, and those who can't stand the site of Baby Jesus decorations at govt buildings, is very selective. Day off? Fanfuckingtastic. Religious decoration? Whoa, wait a ******* minute. Hypocrital *******.

You're the only one with any outrage here.

I highly doubt that if Jesus was a real person he was born on December 25th. It's a cultural holiday for many people, not religious. You get a tree, cook up a good dinner, exchange presents, and go to bed drunk. Yay christmas! Same with easter, except you swap the tree with eggs and the presents with chocolate.

Pretty sure both holidays came about due to Jesus Christ, real or fictional, who is, for lack of a better word, a religious "icon".

Anyway, if he's not a real person, why should a manger scene, depicting him as a baby, be offensive to anyone regardless of it's placement? Do people get angry if the statehouse has a Disney set-up on it's lawn?

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/28/2013 1:36:00 PM (view original):Pretty sure both holidays came about due to Jesus Christ, real or fictional, who is, for lack of a better word, a religious "icon".

Anyway, if he's not a real person, why should a manger scene, depicting him as a baby, be offensive to anyone regardless of it's placement? Do people get angry if the statehouse has a Disney set-up on it's lawn?

You protesting ***** are awful inconsistent about what to protest.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Both holidays were pagan celebrations (easter is named after the goddess eostre and celebrations go back as far as 200 BC) adobted by christians to celebrate their god. Also both holidays are celebrated by many people without any religious implications at all. Similar to July 4th or Thanksgiving.

The government can't treat any one set of religious beliefs differently than any other given set of religious beliefs.

If the government put up signs saying "There is no god," that would be an endorsement of atheism. Remaining secular is just refusing to pick a side.

Atheists believe in nothing, so allowing nothing religious to be displayed is an endorsement of what they believe in.

Plenty of non-religious people celebrate christmas. I do and I don't believe in god.

Now I get how you think atheism works.

To you, atheism means you get to tell everyone else how there is no god while you personally still participate in religious celebrations. At the least, this screams out you are a hypocrite. It also may say you just advocate whatever you think will forward your agenda.

I highly doubt that if Jesus was a real person he was born on December 25th.

Yeah, he couldn't have been real because there is absolutely no corroborating evidence for the historical aspect of anything in the bible. (That was thick sarcasm if you somehow didn't get it.)

It's a cultural holiday for many people, not religious.

Face it you want to pick and choose the religious things that personally benefit you, i.e. you want a day off for fun and celebration, but you don't want people putting up displays because that doesn't fit your agenda.

You can't have it both ways. Either you're an atheist or you're not, and if you are, stop celebrating religious holidays.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Both holidays were pagan celebrations (easter is named after the goddess eostre and celebrations go back as far as 200 BC) adobted by christians to celebrate their god. Also both holidays are celebrated by many people without any religious implications at all. Similar to July 4th or Thanksgiving.

Actually BL is right on this (sort of).

Christmas was not literally the birth date of Jesus (which is historically considered to have been in the springtime). Christmas was merely adopted as Jesus' birthday in order to convince pagans of the merits of Christianity. You see, the pagans annually held a celebration on or near the winter solstice (which is usually around December 21), and by giving the pagans a Jesus-centered reason to celebrate they could more easily convert them.

It's fairly similar with Easter. Technically, Jesus' death and resurrection events were historically linked to the Jewish passover festivities, but linking them to a pagan celebration made it easier to convert pagans to Christianity.

I am atheist and I will continue to celebrate christmas and easter. Because they aren't religious holidays for me. They are cultural.

The ten commandments up on the courthouse wall isn't religious either - it's cultural.

Yeah, your whole argument is pretty much screwed now.

No, the ten commandments are not cultural. They are religious. The ten commandments aren't law. I can covet my neighbors wife all day, every day and there is nothing the police can do about it. The commandments are only a religious symbol.